Technology - Internet

How Has Internet influenced Games Development?

The internet has made a great difference in gaming where as gaming evolved, the internet evolved with it. (Smith, 2017) points out that the internet has changed the gaming industry. The article talks about the change in videogames as a result of the internet being involved in it. Examples of this is the social aspect in gaming where with help of an internet connection, gamers are able to play and communicate with each other within certain videogames. Furthermore, the internet has also introduced new mechanics such as microtransactions which requires an internet connection. The inclusion of the internet in the gaming industry means game developers can design their games to have additional features that require an internet connection such as the social side of games and additional features.

Couch gaming is becoming obsolete by the existence of online multiplayer (playing multiplayer but with an internet connection) (Gleeson, 2017). In the last decade, multiplayer traditionally was playing on the same couch and playing on the same TV screen locally with split-screen additions that video games may have. (Gleeson, 2017) however, claims this has changed overtime. He claims in the article that videogame developers in today’s age are becoming less interested in the idea of making local multiplayer-based games but instead would rather make videogames that features online multiplayer, meaning playing multiplayer with an internet connection. This shows that videogame developers are designing games to require an internet connection to play multiplayer rather than traditionally being able to play on the same screen and same console. This means that the internet has changed multiplayer in gaming from how it originally was. 

Due to the rise of online gaming, there has been a movement of videogames being the online multiplayer videogames. This is where videogames have been especially developed to be a multiplayer online only experience and the movement has become more common. (Zalvin, 2018) argues that single-player games are becoming less popular as they are less talked about within the gaming community. The article talks about how multiplayer has made changes in gaming as video games are being made to be multiplayer only or even adding multiplayer to single player games that removes the interest of players wanting to try out the single player in the first place and therefore jump into multiplayer right away. This tells us that video game developers are focusing on incorporating online multiplayer as an aspect in their videogames, meaning that more and more games will continue aiming to have multiplayer involved in it.